


a day is long, and i will be waiting for you

by rokkasen



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 08:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18734914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokkasen/pseuds/rokkasen
Summary: Post Trespasser, Cassandra comes to Kirkwall looking for a stolen item; Varric is only too eager to help. Also, Hawke and Isabela attempt to flirt with Cassandra (badly).





	a day is long, and i will be waiting for you

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Also the poem, I Crave, belongs to the legendary Pablo Neruda.

If there was going to be a sequel to _All This Shit is Weird_ , it would begin exactly like this:

Varric is drowning in monotonous paperwork -- contemplating the pros and cons of stabbing himself in the neck with a quill as Bran drones on and on about zoning regulations interspersed with nuggets of wisdom like, “No Varric, you cannot put a hospice right next to the _The Blooming Rose_ , that’s so unhygienic!” “But think how happy it would make the patients! Everyone wins!” -- when his door flies open. Bran is about to bark at the visitor about propriety and appointments but the words die in his throat. 

Cassandra Pentaghast, resplendent in her armor, a shining beacon of strength and integrity, stands in front of them like Andraste herself had descended from the heavens to save Varric from Death by Paperwork. Varric’s heart stutters, just a bit, but he quickly attributes it to too many late nights and too much Orlesian coffee.

“Am I due for an interrogation?” Varric asks, pushing away from the desk. He knows he’s smiling, grinning like an idiot, and not all of it is because of Bran’s disgusted noise at the interruption. “Maker’s balls, I’m actually looking forward to an interrogation. This job is killing me.”

Bran clears his throat pointedly. “Seeker Pentaghast. To what --”

“It’s a private matter,” Cassandra says, face devoid of any sort of emotion. Varris doesn’t know what he is expecting -- a smile, maybe? A greeting? It had been some time since they last saw each other at the Exalted Council and, loathe as he is to admit it, he missed bothering her. Was it too much to hope for that she missed him, just a little?

Cassandra’s stony expression promptly answers that question and Varric sighs. This is why he never got his hopes up. Much better to expect nothing and never be disappointed.

“It’s fine, Bran. Give us a minute.”

Bran smartly keeps his mouth shut, but he is eyeing Cassandra suspiciously as he leaves the room. He is probably worried, Varric thinks, that she is here to conscript Varric for some dangerous mission and Bran might have to be Provisional Viscount again. Cassandra only arches a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at Bran and Varric coughs to hide the snicker at Bran’s alarmed expression. The former Right Hand of the Divine certainly cuts an intimidating figure and is, Varric knows from personal experience, not someone to be trifled with.

Varric gestures for Cassandra to sit on a nearby couch and she does so after only a moment of hesitation. The guarded look starts to melt away into something more thoughtful -- less closed off, more pensive. Varric takes a seat next to her. “So, if I’m not being interrogated --” Cassandra snorts, “to what do I owe the pleasure? Is it the Seekers?”

“No,” Cassandra says carefully. “Not… quite.”

Sympathy colors his voice. He knows how important this mission is to her and damn it, if there’s something he can do it help, he will. “Is the search not going well?”

Her brows furrow, gloved hands clenching tightly. “It is slow,” she admits, “but that’s not…”

Varric waits for her to continue. An uncomfortable silence falls between them. In all the years he had known her, Varric had only seen Cassandra waver a handful of times. Usually she was steadfast and strong, always pushing forward no matter the opposition, punching whatever was in her way. It is something that is both utterly aggravating and extremely commendable about her. To see her look so hesitant is alarming. “Seeker?”

The blush starts at her cheeks and spreads down to her neck and _Holy Shit, This Shit Just Got Weirder_ is now a contender for sequel title. “I know you are busy and I would never -- I am not --” 

He puts a hand on her shoulder, moving slowly enough that she could shrug him off (or chop his hand off), if she wanted. Cassandra doesn’t move and Varric takes that as a positive sign. “Hey. I’m never too busy to help a friend.”

Friend. Varric had never quantified their relationship but he supposed the title fit. They had their differences -- loud, violent differences -- but for all intents and purposes, they were friends. His resentment of her had melted away ages ago, once he realized that it wasn’t fair to put all of his misplaced blame about his life on her. Not every question from her was an interrogation, not every comment was a cutting jab at his inadequacies. 

She is a Seeker of Truth and Varric made a career of lying, and they shouldn’t fit together, but still, somehow, someway, he enjoyed her company.

The tension melts out of Cassandra instantly. “I am looking for something. In Kirkwall. I have been looking for a few days and the search has led me here.”

“So you didn’t just come for a social call,” Varric teases.

“I admit, I was a little curious to see how your city is faring,” Cassandra says. “The reconstruction effort is surprising.”

He laughs. “Is that your way of saying I’m doing a good job?”

“Yes, but don’t let it get to your head.”

Varric puts a hand on his chest, the very image of a wounded man. “Me? An egotist?”

Cassandra rolls her eyes. “Says the dwarf whose back cover biography is a picture of him surrounded by fawning women.”

Well. She had him there. “Anyway, you’re looking for something.”

“Yes.”

“And…” Cassandra is quiet again. “Seeker, come on. I’m gonna need more than that to go on.”

She grimaces. “I’m looking for something that was stolen from Orlais.”

Varric nods. “Sure, let me just knock on the door of every crook in Kirkwall and politely ask them if they’ve ever stolen anything from Orlais. That should only take about six hundred years, give or take.”

“Varric!”

“Seeker, look. I want to help you but you’ve got to give me something more than that.”

Cassandra takes a deep breath, clearly summoning all of the patience that she has. Which, as Varric recalls, is very little. “I am looking for a painting.”

That’s… not quite what he is expecting, but Varric decides to go with it. “Never took you as an appreciator of fine art. Asides from my books, of course.”

“Be serious, Varric.”

Varric still hasn’t dropped his hand from her shoulder. He doesn’t know why. He decides to chalk it up to an extreme lack of human contact, because he is not ready to delve deeper than that at the moment. “Tell me about the painting.”

The blush is back in full force and it is taking everything in him not to tease her about it. “It is of a-- a woman.”

“And…?”

“It was painted by… someone I knew very well,” Cassandra says.

Now he is intrigued. “Who?”

“Does it matter?” Cassandra snaps.

Varric holds his hands up, as if to fend off an incoming attack. “Only because some artists’ paintings go for a lot, so it would help to know what kind of thief we’re looking for.”

“He -- he wasn’t a well known artist.”

“He?” Varric repeats.

Cassandra rubs at her eyebrows, a visible tension headache forming. Curiouser and curiouser. “Regalyan D’Marcall,” she concedes. “He was a mage.”

“He was a mage?”

“Are you going to just repeat back everything I am saying?” Cassandra asks sharply. “Yes, he was a mage. An Enchanter. The painting was apparently stolen from his storage chest in Val Royeaux. Since I was listed as his only contact, I received a letter from their Guard Captain concerning the stolen items.”

For a moment, Varric wonders why the name sounds familiar. Realization hits him the way people fall off buildings - hard, fast, and painful. He instantly recalls a very intense conversation with Cassandra after the debacle with Bianca and the red lyrium.

_You brought up Bianca, Seeker. Does that mean I can ask about your conquests?_

_Very well, Varric. If you wish to know about men I have known, I will tell you.Years ago, I knew a young mage named Regalyan._

Shit, Varric thinks, inwardly cringing at his past self for the lack of delicacy.

_He was dashing, unlike any men I met. He died at the Conclave…_

_Shit._

Not… one of his finer moments, Varric admits to himself. It was downright cruel to taunt her when Cassandra had just been concerned about him, and he had felt terrible after the exchange. Still felt a little terrible, truth be told, because although he had always seen Cassandra as someone made of stone, someone beyond the inconvenience of soft feelings, beyond the ability to truly be hurt, he was so wrong.

And something else, something uncomfortable, unsettles him about the prospect of Cassandra leaving her very far away, very secret Seeker mountain just to hunt down a painting by a dead ex-boyfriend.

He puts that thought into the ever growing bank of _Feelings to Unpack Never_ and instead focuses on Cassandra.

“Okay,” he says simply. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. We’ll find it.”

A smile blooms on her face, the first one had seen since she arrived.

“Thank you, Varric. I had hoped I could count on you.” She reaches over and squeezes his hand, just for a moment, before standing up and excusing herself.

When he is alone, he realizes he is still smiling.

_Shit._

\---

“Sooo,” Isabela croons over the din of The Hanged Man, leaning over to show off the vast expanse of her very full chest, “Cassandra. Varric here tells us you’re on a quest. Any friend of Varric’s is a friend of ours, you know.”

Cassandra ignores the spread in front of her, taking a delicate sip of wine. Varric is trying very hard to hold back laughter at Isabela’s bold attempts to flirt. Boy, was she barking up the wrong tree. “Is that so?”

Hawke, not to be outdone, scootches closer to Cassandra. Varric looks at him as if to ask, _What in the name of all things good and holy are you doing?_ but Hawke only gives his best friend a roguish smile. “And while you’re here, I can sign that copy of _The Tale of the Champion_ for you.”

Cassandra nearly chokes on her wine. Varric pats her back on the back and is met with a steely glare. “Varric…”

“What? I told him you were a big fan,” Varric says, as innocently as a Chantry sister. “And you have a very limited edition copy of the book, complete with giant hole in the middle. It’s practically a collector’s item already!”

Cassandra scowls deeply and even in the darkness of the tavern, Varric can see her blushing. “Are you a big fan?” Hawke asks. “I hope I don’t disappoint you too badly. Varric does tend to exaggerate in his writing.” He refills Cassandra’s glass. “Except the part about me being devastatingly handsome, with a penchant for magic and beautiful women.”

Hawke pointedly eyes Cassandra, who is either completely uninterested or completely oblivious.

Varric’s money is on the latter. For a Seeker of Truth, she could be so blind as to what was right in front of her.

“And humble,” Varric supplies. “Did Hawke mention how humble he is?”

Merrill bounces a little in her seat, clearly very excited at the prospect of a new friend. “Varric told us you’re looking for a painting. I think it’s so romantic,” she sighs. “To still care for someone so deeply that you would risk life and limb to retrieve his painting.”

Varric resists shrinking in his seat at the look Cassandra bestows upon him. “Did you tell _everyone and their mothers_ why I am here?” she asks. Her words lack the usual heat of anger, but she is annoyed. “Can’t you ever keep your mouth shut?”

“Hey,” he protests, “if you want answers, you need the best people on the job. I promised you I would help you and I am. Now let me do my job. Trust me.”

Cassandra weighs his words, settling back in her chair. Varric is oddly proud that he is able to placate her so quickly, almost as if she really trusted him. “I appreciate any help you can offer,” she says to the table. “I need to get this done quickly, as I have other duties that need to be tended to.”

The Seeker is met with genuine smiles and it amazing and surprising, Varric thinks, how quickly his friends take to Cassandra. 

Then again, Varric thinks as he watches Hawke and Isabel ham handedly try to seduce her, maybe it’s not so surprising.

“So Varric tells us that your late lover was a mage,” Hawke says after one drink too many.

Varric pointedly does not meet Cassandra’s gaze. “Oh, did he? Is there anything Varric _doesn’t_ tell you?”

Hawke takes a moment to think about it. “Probably not.”

“Hmph.”

“Do you like mages, then?” Hawke is giving Cassandra a very heated look and Varric watches helplessly as Cassandra grapples with the question. He doesn’t know who to feel worse for; Cassandra or Hawke.

Cassandra traces the top of her wine glass, eyes a little distant. She is tipsy -- possibly the tipsiest that Varric has ever seen her. “Sometimes. You remind me of him,” she says to Hawke, expression soft. “Just a little.”

Varric watches the two, a strange feeling coming over him. He drinks deeply from his mug, the terrible ale a welcome distraction.

“So, he was very handsome, then?” Hawke leers.

Cassandra only rolls her eyes and Isabela and Hawke immediately launch into a mock-fight about which one of them is better looking. Merrill gets caught in the middle, giggling and proclaiming that they are both beautiful in their own ways. Varric releases the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

His drink was probably poisoned, Varric decides. That would explain the heart arrhythmia and the shallow breathing. Or maybe he is just getting old and all the stress from fixing a dilapidated city is going to make him stroke out at any moment.

“Varric says Cassandra loves his terrible romance books,” Isabela pipes up helpfully. Cassandra sighs, deeply, and Varric only shrugs. What can he say? Cassandra makes for some great storytelling fodder. “I happen to be excellent at poetry. I love reading poetry! I bet I am vastly superior at poetry reciting than you, Hawke.”

Hawke barks out a laugh. “You? Love reading poetry? Do you even know how to read?”

“Yes,” Isabela says grandly, supremely drunk. She stands up in her chair. Varric holds an arm out preemptively, in case she falls. “Pirates invented limericks, you know. Here we go: _There once was a man from Val Royeaux_ \--”

“Stop, stop!” the bar patrons cry, throwing food and napkins at her. “Boo! Show us your tits!”

Cassandra is laughing behind her glass and Varric watches her, lips quirked up into a smile of his own. It’s nice to see her so relaxed. He missed this, he realizes. He missed the nights of drinking with the Inquisition, teaching Cassandra to gamble, pretending to be annoyed when she stalked into his room, rife with criticism about an old book of his.

He wonders if she missed him at all, if any part of this trip was pleasure instead of business. The alcohol catches up with his brain and he almost asks her, when Hawke interrupts.

“Since Cassandra is a literature lover, maybe she’ll recite a poem.” Hawke winks. It is so over the top, Varric is a little embarrassed for his friend. But just a little. “Or a passage from one of Varric’s books. One of the smutty ones.”

Cassandra is startled and Varric cannot resist the temptation to tease her. “Aww, don’t embarass her, Hawke. The Seeker is a good Chantry girl. You’re corrupting her.”

The effect is immediate. Cassandra sits up straighter in her chair and sniffs. “I am not a child, Varric. I can do it.”

Maker, she is easy. Almost too easy. It feels wrong to manipulate her, but Varric’s already questionable sense of morality is easily overtaken by his curiosity. Merrill, Hawke, and Isabela are clapping and shouting their encouragements and it’s too late to turn back.

“ _I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day. I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps._ ”

The table is silent, enraptured with the recitation. Cassandra’s voice is soft, deep, and husky from the wine. It’s doing something unspeakable to Varric that he tries to attribute to years of self imposed celibacy.

“ _I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond_ ,” she recites, eyes on Varric. He suppresses a shiver at the intensity of her gaze, unable to look away.

“ _I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes._ ”

She licks her lips, dry from talking, and Varric follows the movement with his eyes. A traitorous thought pops into his brain: What would it be like to kiss her? He could blame the alcohol or the years of unresolved sexual tension, but there it was.

He _wants._

The rest of the poem is interrupted -- thankfully -- by the appearance of the Guard Captain, Aveline, who apologizes for the intrusion but has some pertinent information about the missing painting. “You can come join us when you sober up,” she says to the rest of the group, shaking her head fondly. “You degenerates.”

Hawke, Merrill, Isabela, and Varric are silent for a long moment, each lost in their own thoughts.

“Alright,” Isabela finally says. “Who else is suddenly incredibly aroused by poetry?”

Varric groans. This is going to be a very long night.

\---

Seventy two hours later and the team is prowling the docks -- by Smetty's Fish Guttery, to be more precise -- to find the painting. Varric expects pirates or mercenaries or at the very least some local punks, but none are guarding the area. He should feel proud, since one of his goals was to clean up Kirkwall, but it all just seemed… boring.

According to Aveline’s intel, the painting was in one of the crates nearby. Varric thought Cassandra would be more offended that it wasn’t being held hostage by the Carta or being put up for auction on the black market or something, but she just seemed relieved. 

Suspicious.

“It’s a little anticlimactic, I have to say.” Varric opens one of the crates nearby. “No painting. Only Oil Horn-Balm in here. Maybe I should send some to Bull?”

“Just keep looking, dwarf.” Cassandra savagely slices through a crate. “Ugh, how many are we going to have to look through? And it reeks of fish. This is neverending!”

Hawke cheerfully opens a crate with his bare hands. “I know, isn’t it great?”

“You should have seen him back in his hayday,” Varric mutters to Cassandra. “Every damn crate. No crate left behind. You can’t even imagine how many hours --”

“I think I found it!” Merrill cries. “I’m going to take it out--”

“NO!” Cassandra bellows and almost _flies_ over to Merrill. Varric had never seen her move so fast before, not even when facing down a dragon. “I’ll take it!”

The painting is snatched out of Merrill’s hands and clutched to Cassandra’s chest.

_So suspicious._

“Seeker,” Varric says mildly. “You never told us what the painting actually was. I think for our effort, we should get to see it.”

Cassandra unsheaths her sword with a free hand. “You are welcome to try and take it from me.”

The group takes a step back.

She nods and sheaths her sword. “A wise decision.”

Varric watches her walk away wondering, not for the first time, how the hell he could be attracted to a woman who was so damn confusing.

\---

“The painting is not important,” Cassandra says for the umpteenth time, spearing her food more savagely than necessary. She had invited Varric to the inn where she was staying for dinner, as a thank you for his help, and for the life of him, Varric cannot let this painting go. “Drop it.”

Varric holds his hands out pleadingly. “Seeker. I have to know. You’re killing me here. ”

She purses her lips. “You are a rogue.”

“Well, I try.”

“You are stealthy.”

“Sometimes.”

“Could you not just… sneak into my room and look at it, if you wanted?” Cassandra asks.

This… feels like a trap. A landmine, a mental bomb just waiting to explode. He weighs his options and decides honesty is the best policy. “Sure, I could. But I wouldn’t do that. I want your permission.”

Cassandra suddenly pushes away from the table. “Fine. But it is nothing exciting, I assure you.”

Varric scrambles to follow her to her room, both excited at seeing the painting and terrified at the prospect of following her to her room. He had imagined this a lot, especially lately, and he tries to keep expectations low. He is just coming to see the painting. She is not inviting him to her room for any other purpose. Definitely not any naked purposes.

Does he even want that?

He thinks back to the tavern, her voice telling him, _I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair._ Varric glares down at the front of his pants, willing his body not to embarrass him. He is over forty and he should not be getting unexpected hard-ons at the mere thought of a woman reciting poetry, damn it.

Cassandra has the painting in hand, turned away from him. “I will not lie to you, Varric. The painting is… of me. Well, it is of me fifteen years ago.”

“Oh,” Varric says, making himself at home and sitting right on her bed. He reaches over to her nightstand and flips through one of the books. A shitty romance novel, even worse than Swords and Shields. He’s a little miffed that she’s cheating on his books with something so inferior. “So you’re shy. I remember how much you _hated_ that painting of ‘The Hero of Orlais’ the Inquisitor received as a gift at Skyhold. Maker, was it gaudy. There is no way you’d run into battle with a gold and diamond encrusted suit of armor. Too soft.”

Cassandra’s fingers dig into the silver frame of the painting. “I am not… it is a very… _intimate_ painting.”

“How intimate?”

“I am disrobed.”

Varric drops the book onto the hardwood floor and gapes at her. “Beg your pardon?”

Cassandra scoffs, trying so hard not to look embarrassed. It is almost endearing. “You heard me.”

“Are you trying to tell me,” Varric says slowly, “you came all the way to Kirkwall to find a naked painting of yourself?”

“... yes.”

He wants to laugh so, so badly because this is utterly ridiculous but Varric doesn’t want to hurt her. Despite how she acted, Cassandra was a sensitive soul deep down. He isn’t about the ruin their fragile relationship by being a jerk. “You don’t have to show me. It’s enough that you trusted me enough to tell me.”

“I can show you,” Cassandra says, “but it isn’t terribly interesting.”

_It isn’t terrible interesting, she says. She has no idea._

“Oh, I seriously doubt that, Seeker,” Varric chuckles.

Cassandra slowly turns the painting around, closing her eyes. The Cassandra on the painting is in her early twenties at the latest, rounder faced, with noticeably less scarring. Her dark hair is long, tied back in a loose, braided bun. She is naked from the waist up, bending over slightly as she pulls on her armor. 

He feels like a voyeur, a third party watching a scene between two lovers. The painter had so clearly been enamored with his subject. The picture is all soft lines and colors, the expression on Cassandra’s face wistful. The technique isn’t perfect but the feeling behind it is pure, innocent, loving; there is nothing dirty or shameful about it.

Varric had seen Cassandra in various states of undress before; they were soldiers, after all, had patched up each other’s wounds, bathed in the same bodies of water, but this is… different. 

She is trusting him with something precious.

He doesn’t know if he is worthy.

But he so badly wants to be.

“It’s beautiful,” Varric says simply. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed.”

Cassandra puts the painting down on a chair gently, sinking down next to him on the bed. “Thank you. There is something else I haven’t quite been honest about.”

“Oh? Is there a matching statue somewhere we need to hunt down?”

She nudges his shoulder with hers. “Be serious for a moment. I did come to Kirkwall to find the painting, but also to see how you were doing.”

“Why, Seeker,” Varric jokes, “are you saying you missed me?”

This time, there is no hesitation. “Yes.”

Well, shit.

“I see. Well,” Varric reaches up to put a hand on the back of her neck, “I am a very missable person, that’s true.”

“ _Ugh._ ”

“And,” his voice lowers to a whisper, “we still haven’t discussed payment for my services.”

“Oh?” Cassandra asks, letting him guide her head downward. “Is that right?”

“Time is money, Seeker. That’s the number one rule of business.” They are nose to nose, lips almost touching but not quite. “And as a businessman first and foremost --”

Cassandra grabs him by the collar and all but throws him down on the bed, climbing on top of him. He doesn’t care of this is the aftereffects of poison or a stroke or a blood curse, it is the most beautiful sight he has ever seen. “Varric, for once in your life, stop talking.”

“Happily, Seeker.”

\---

Varric gasps and slams his hand down on the bed in defeat. The spirit is willing but the flesh is so, so weak and out of practice. Who knew that a ten year dry spell (and approaching middle age) would make sex so hard? “Mercy. Shit, mercy. I give.”

Cassandra has barely broken a sweat and is a vision of loveliness, naked, satisfied, and lounging on the pillows like a queen. She is alternating between stroking her fingers through his hair and braiding and unbraiding tiny portions as he catches his breath. “Are you alright?”

“Andraste’s tits, Seeker, I think you broke me.” Varric winces as he tries to flex his hip. That’s going to hurt in the morning. “But if this is the way I die, so be it.”

She snorts. “Varric.”

“They’ll say, ‘Varric Tethras died as he lived. Doing what he loved.’ Honestly, I can think of a lot worse ways to be remembered.”

“You are ridiculous.” Her voice is fond, even as she chastises him

“Ridiculous, but you like me,” he teases.

She yanks his hair hard enough to make him yelp. “Don’t push it, dwarf.”

Varric rolls over onto his side, resting a hand on her hip. He strokes a thin scar there, mapping her out from waist to thigh. “Oh, fine. If you still want to pretend like you find me annoying --”

“-- I do still find you annoying --”

“ -- or that you don’t think I’m adorable --”

“ -- not so much --”

He suddenly drops his weight on top of her and Cassandra groans. Varric is truly enjoying this new way of getting her attention and bothering her. He is only sorry he hadn’t thought to act on this years ago. “Seeker. Just admit that you like me. You’ll feel better. I heard confession is good for the soul.”

She turns her face away stubbornly. “I am not good with words. But…”

“But…?” he encourages.

“I do… care for you. Despite my better judgment.”

Varric laughs and kisses her soundly, sloppily, loving her half hearted protests. “I’ll take it.”

\---

“So you saw the painting?” Hawke asks days later, after Cassandra had left. “I can’t believe Cassandra let you see it. She almost impaled me with her sword when I asked.”

Varric shuffles around a few papers on his desk, whistling a jaunty tune. He had an ice pack on his hip and the paperwork had really piled up while he was distracted with his Seeker, but all in all, totally worth it. “Oh, yeah. Shame she didn’t let me keep it. I would have put it right over my desk.”

Hawke gives him an incredulous look. “You’re not going to tell me what the painting was of, are you?”

“Nope. You do not want to cross her. Trust me,” Varric says sagely, “I know from experience.”

“Are you still on about that? So she beat you up a little. It could have been worse, if you ask me,” Hawke says. “I’d let her tie me up.”

“Maker’s breath, Hawke. You’re the worst.”

Hawke shrugs. “What can I say? I love a powerful woman. She can step on me all she likes.”

Varric chucks a quill at his head. “Down, boy. You gave it your best shot, but clearly, she wasn’t interested.”

The Champion of Kirkwall sighs longingly. “I did give it my best shot. The only reprieve is that Isabela failed just as spectacularly. I could never live that one down.”

“That’s really too bad.” Varric cannot keep the smugness out of his voice. He wants to share his happiness with his best friend, true, but it doesn’t hurt that he can throw it in his face that for once, Varric is the hero of the story. “I guess the Seeker was just looking for more… substance. Perhaps a man with more worldly experience… someone who happens to be her favorite author… not conventionally handsome, true, but he’s not bad all in all.”

“You _didn’t_... did you?”

“Sorry, Hawke.” The grin on the dwarf’s face is downright shit-eating. “I don’t kiss and tell.”


End file.
